


Failed Diode

by MrProphet



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 08:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10693611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	1. Waiting for the Man

“You have a choice to make,” Dione explained, looking the boy in the eyes. “Take the red pill and you’ll find out everything; take the blue pill… and this will all have been a dream. So; which will it be?” she asked with a smile.

“I choose… door number three.” The boy winked at her; twice. It was exactly the same wink, but twice.

“Agents!” Diode warned, leaping to her feet, dropping both pills to the floor. “Senzu; get us an exit, n…!”

The young hacker threw back his head and gave a long, distorted scream, like the tearing hiss of signal noise through an old-fashioned modem. With a thunderous crash, the window was blown in and the Agents arrived, two of them, diving through a hail of bullets and coming up shooting.

Anansi and the Chip Monk died first. One of the Agents fell after that, but the second killed the twins, Hack and Slash, with his next two bullets. Diode caught him in the shoulder; a lucky shot, but it was all the distraction Transluminary needed to hit him in the head. None of them were fool enough to think that this was any kind of victory.

They moved through to the next room, Diode dragging the boy with them. This room had no windows and Transluminary barricaded the door with a table. Senzu was on his mobile, but the telephone on the table did not ring. “The hardline’s been cut,” he told Diode. “Nearest exit is two miles east.”

“Senzu,” Diode sighed. “You and Transluminary make a run for it out the back way. Tell Diana to unplug us and get the hell out of there.”

“But…”

Transluminary shook his huge head. “We’re probably dead either way,” he noted, “and they can get the codes from her brain. We can’t let that happen.”

“Good luck,” she said.

The door shook and the table cracked almost in two. Transluminary paused a moment to put a hand on Diode’s shoulder and touch his brow against hers, then he and Senzu were gone.

Diode turned to the boy. “You want to tell me why?” she asked.

“Eh?” the boy asked.

“You sold us out,” she told him. “Why do that?”

The boy grinned. “Are you crazy? Why would I want to be one of you when I could be an Agent.”

Diode shook her head. “Is that what they promised you?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna train to be one of them.”

“That’s what they promised you?”

“Yeah.”

“They lied.” Diode shot him in the head as the door burst open. “And you are?” she asked, swinging her weapon to cover the newly arrived Agent.

“I’m Davis,” the Agent said. “Agent Davis.” She looked good in the suit; she was probably the one who had convinced the boy. Now she didn’t spare his body a single glance.

Diode pulled the trigger, but the Agent was already too close. The outcome of the fight was predictable, but Diode strung it out as long as she could, to give Senzu and Transluminary a chance. When it was over, she could only hope that her comrades would pull the plug on her sooner rather than later.


	2. Chewing the Fat

The cell was neither dark nor cold, but Diode experienced both sensations as though it were. In truth it was no more than a construct of Matrix code, yet as inescapable as any chamber of stone and steel. The only way out would be if Diana disconnected her body from the  _Oneira_ ’s Matrix interface.

For the time being, Diode’s Matrix shell sat in a hard chair, her wrists shackled at her sides. A small, bare table stood in front of her, with a second chair across from her. With a clunk, the cell door opened and light spilled into the room, outlining a slim figure in a tailored suit.

“Agent Davis,” Diode said as brightly as she could manage. “I thought you’d forgotten about me. No questioning, no torture, no electrodes, no code drips…”

Agent Davis sashayed into the room, eyes hidden behind her impenetrable shades. Diode strained briefly against the cuffs, but even if they had broken she knew she could not have escaped. Davis was a honey trap program, built to snare the same young hackers who formed Zion’s principle recruiting ground; she settled into the steel chair with ice-queen dignity, but Diode had the bruises to show that Davis could fight as well as any Agent.

“Miss Thursten,” Davis said, in a voice like liquid caramel, “we are not…”

“Diode.”

“Miss Thursten?”

“My name is Diode,” Diode insisted. “I no longer answer to my system ident.”

Davis smiled. “As you wish, Diode. I was going to say that there is no need for unpleasantness and strong-arm techniques.”

“Tell that to my bruises.”

“That use of force was made necessary by your resistance. Now that you are contained we can restrict ourselves to more  _civilised_  methods of persuasion.” Davis stood and walked to Diode’s side. She bent down and released Diode’s cuffs. “For example, unless you create that need again, we can move this interview to more amenable surroundings. Like…”

*

“…so.”

The code changed; the cell became the terrace of a grand hotel, with furnishings and trimmings to match. As Davis returned to her seat a pretty, blonde waitress approached and poured three cups of tea. Davis took a seat and a cup and sipped delicately, but Diode studiously ignored the offered beverage.

“Am I supposed to be so relieved that I spontaneously betray my cause, or is the tea drugged?”

Davis smiled again. “This is simply a pleasant place in which to make you an offer, Diode. If you cooperate with us, we will bring you consciousness fully into the Matrix; you will live here and become effectively immortal.”

“You can’t download a consciousness independently of its body,” Diode scoffed, “and besides, I’d rather die than betray Zion.”

Davis reached out a hand to cover Diode’s. “It is true that you require both a body and a consciousness to survive, but we can give you a new body; a permanent Matrix shell, capable of supporting you indefinitely.”

“That’s… not possible.” Diode struggled against the wave of comfort which washed out from Davis’ touch. 

Davis waved her other hand and the waitress brought over another woman. The newcomer was strangely bland; dark and attractive, but somehow unmemorable. “Diode, meet your new body. I know she doesn’t look much, but that it because she lacks self-image. Once you take possession, she will gain all of your vivacity and charm.” The Agent flashed a radiant smile.

Diode frowned and withdrew her hand, cutting off the flow of soothing, numbing subroutines. She shook her head to clear the fog. “Why would you do that?” she demanded. “Charity?”

“As a reward for your cooperation.”

“I won’t help you. I’d sooner die,” Diode repeated.

“Die, perhaps, but what about living. I have seen your files, Diode; I know that you were almost thirty when you were extracted from the Field of Dreams and that was twenty years ago. Yours has been an exceptional career, but you an not tell me that your organic body remains as fresh and strong as this. I offer an escape from all the aches and pains that come with ageing in the real world. Doesn’t that sound nice?” she crooned.

“I…” Diode hesitated for barely a second, but that was enough for the shell to reach out and grab her by the hand. A wave of dizziness drove Diode under and, when her vision came back into focus, she could see that the blank was no longer blank.

“What have you done?” the blank demanded, and then she fell face down on the table.

“What…?” Diode gasped. She looked across the table, but Davis was now sitting on her right and the blank had shifted from right to left. As the truth dawned, Davis smiled.

“It only took a moment of acceptance, but it seems to have come just in time. Your shipmates gave up on you, Diode; your body is as dead as your original shell.”

Diode tried to stand, but the waitress grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down. Straps wound around her arms and legs and the tea room dissolved back into the cell. Two cups remained, as did Diode’s original shell.

The waitress, now dressed in an Agent’s suit and shades, walked to Davis’ side, picking up the second cup as she passed.

“Now,” Davis said, “we have all the time in the world.”


End file.
